Fall's in the air, and unfortunately, so is the flu. While it's beneficial for your personal wellbeing to get your flu shot this year, it's also become somewhat of a social responsibility to do so. Newscasters are talking about it, doctors are talking about it, your friends and family are likely talking about it, even social media is piping up about the issue.

Regardless of the sources you're hearing it from, the message remains the same: the flu shot is your best shot against the flu virus, and the best way to protect the people around you.

It's no longer simply you vs. flu, it's us vs. flu.

So, are you doing your part?

Doctors recommend it

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released their data for the number of flu-related deaths during 2017. The results? An estimated 80,000 Americans died of the flu and its complications last winter–a devastating and record-breaking high. In previous seasons, flu-related deaths ranged from a low of about 12,000 (2011-2012) to a high of about 56,000 (2012-2013).

Workplaces recommend it

Workplaces across the country are urging employees to get their flu shots this season, and even incentivizing them to do so. Brogan & Partners is one of said workplaces. All Brogan employees who get the flu shot are treated to a lunch on the company. It's part of our efforts to protect ourselves, our office, our business and our community as a whole.

Society recommends it

The last time you refreshed your Facebook page or Twitter feed, you probably saw a post like this. Right?

Or maybe you scrolled past a band-aid arm selfie accompanied by the hashtag #flushot?

More than any other source, social media is portraying the flu shot as something you do for others. It's building a community around community health. And shining a positive light on the people who promote it.

In April, a Facebook group called Breastfeeding Mama Talk even popularized a trend after they posted about the threats of the flu virus to their little ones. The group shared examples of signs from Etsy and Amazon that can be attached to a child's car seat or stroller telling strangers not to touch their kids. The signs say things like "Look, but please don't touch," and "No touching please. Your germs are too big for me.""

Too far? That's up to each parent to decide. But trends like this sum up exactly how community-oriented the health sphere has become.

The fact of the matter is, together WE can fight this flu season. It's about more than just me or just you.

Ditching doctors and relying on Facebook. Millennials are skipping out of traditional practices and turning to social media to diagnose and treat their illness. Out with the old and in with the new. Billie earns r e s p e c t with its new campaign that dares to show that natural women have body hair (gasp!). How brands can appreciate all cultures and avoid cultural appropriation.

Start a new (good) habit, kill an old (bad) one. Habits – actions performed with little conscious thought and often unwittingly triggered by external cues – are powerful influences on behavior and can be our greatest allies for positive change. But because they are so difficult to break, habits are also frequent saboteurs of personal progress.

When cultural appreciation becomes cultural appropriation. By its simplest definition, cultural appropriation is using pieces of other cultures without having or showing a respect or understanding for that culture. There are many ways in which popular culture and advertisers can avoid this mistake.

THE Topic of conversation

Authenticity. Discover which brands are getting real and how to market authenticity across genders, generations and ethnic groups. Download our free whitepaper "3 Rules to Creating an Authentic Brand."

Borrowing bits and pieces from other cultures for marketing purposes can be hazardous to a brand's health.

Companies such as Victoria Secret have been under fire of late for cultural appropriation for their fashion show outfits that clearly display a misrepresentation of aspects of other cultures. The brand displayed an Indian headdress as an accessory for one of their outfits as well as a Chinese dragon in another. Designer Marc Jacobs received backlash for its use of dreadlocks on white models.

Pepsi was criticized for exploiting the Black Lives Matter movement in an ad that featured Kendall Jenner joining a protest and offering up a Pepsi to a police officer guarding the crowd. This ad caused uproars on social media with people feeling angered about the message that they felt was demeaning. The media felt that Pepsi tried to use their brand to exploit the suffering of the black minority. As stated by Eric Thomas, senior partner and brand specialist at Saga MKTG, "this is what happens when you don't have enough people in leadership that reflects the cultures that you represent."

How can brands respect and honor diverse cultures without insulting consumers?

By its simplest definition, cultural appropriation is using pieces of other cultures without having or showing a respect or understanding for that culture. There are many ways in which popular culture and advertisers can avoid this mistake.

Give credit. There is nothing wrong with pulling inspiration from other cultures, but when you do, give proper credit. In doing so, it shows that there is a level of respect for the culture and people of that culture. The British clothing line Superdry gives credit to the Japanese culture that inspires their designs.

Do your research. By creating a diverse environment within your staff, the chances for misunderstanding and producing what may be thought of as an offensive message decrease. If hiring people is not an option, reach out. Make sure that the culture that is featured is represented accurately and positively. Cultural appreciation is about focusing on the unique characteristics of a group of people that others admire and wish to celebrate.

Cultural appreciation is the right thing to do, and it's the right thing for your brand's bottom line. Growing your brand by connecting to more cultures starts with growing your understanding and finding relevance.

There's something to be said about a fast follower. Just ask Instagram. Father's Day is drawing near. The ads everywhere should have told you. Why are dads offended? Embracing new technologies could mean the difference between riding the wave of disruption or drowning in its wake. Millennials are not feeling Snapchat's redesign. How does Gen We understand creativity? And what can brands do?

DETAILS, Please

Instagram is proof shameless copying pays off. The best way to beat your biggest competitor is to straight-up copy them. That may go against everything they teach you in business school, but that's the lesson we can draw from the past two years Instagram has spent relentlessly copying Snapchat.

Fathers are tired of seeing doofus dads in advertising. With Father's Day approaching, there's currently an abundance of ads showing us what American fathers want most. It's important that brands avoid becoming lazy with their portrayals of fathers, and instead remain socially relevant and realistic.

Gen We and the redefinition of creativity. When you hear the word creativity, what do you think? Art, drama, music, creative writing, etc.? Gen We would like everyone to know that while these are creative vehicles, they are not the only ones.

As the rumblings around digital addiction escalate, other trends are emerging as well – like digital wellbeing. Mistakes happen at every business. It's how the business responds to mistakes that makes all the difference to the customer. The remote working movement is hotter than ever. Now, Vermont wants a piece of the action. Yes, Vermont. Online shopping is on the rise, but more consumers are opting to shop from a computer than a phone. And no, it's not an age thing.

Not all e-waste recycling is created equal. As we give brands greater access to our data and wallets, we expect more from these relationships. Speaking of personal data, there's a reason for the flare-up of terms of service update emails on our phones. Communication breakdowns can take a toll on your company. How do you make sure diverse communication styles work for your bottom line rather than against it?

4 ways to combat workplace communication breakdowns. Spend a day in any office, and you'll quickly observe the multitude of different communication styles present in the workplace. Check out how you can avoid the impact these differences can have on the workplace.

Meanwhile, back at the RANCH

Healthcare Checkup - April 2018. Uber Health and Apple Health Records are easing the way for patients, while cryptocurrencies and Weight Watchers are making critics nervous. But no nerves for Zuckerberg, whose calm and cool vibe earned high crisis PR ratings.

THE Topic of conversation

Millennials. Discover who Millennials are, why it's important to market to them, and how you can increase brand loyalty and engagement. Download our free whitepaper "8 Rules of Marketing to Millennials."

Shoppers love the convenience and efficiency of the online experience, but they still like to get physical. Brick and mortar remains a fundamental part of the consumer journey. If they want one channel, it's omnichannel. Will the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal make consumers hold their data more dearly? Because brands are demanding more and more intelligence.

DETAILS, Please

Physical retail isn't dead. It's working with tech to be more human-focused. A balance between ecommerce and brick-and-mortar is needed. See why physical remains fundamental.

Plans for Earth Day? Adidas does and it's sure to be a win for the oceans. Another win – Uber is no longer just a ride-hailing company, they're expanding their business. Looking to expand yours? Perhaps, it's time to answer this: Is youth or experience the key to a successful decision-making team? Turns out, it's a trick question. However, one thing's for certain, women use their phones for far more than just communicating.

DETAILS, Please

Adidas is gearing up for Earth Day. The brand partnered with Major League Soccer and Parley for the Oceans to create Earth Day soccer jerseys from upcycled plastic ocean waste. See why this partnership represents everything that is beneficial in cause-based collaborations.

Marketing and advertising have become increasingly automated over the past ten years, especially in the digital space. You can find any number of companies and software programs that will help you implement elaborate email campaigns, for example, or place programmatic media. But if you want your advertising to stand out – to be creatively different – you have to do that yourself.

Unless you're Brogan & Partners.

Brogan has been chosen as the first U.S. test agency for AdBot, an automated marketing service that utilizes artificial intelligence to essentially clone a creative team.

By uploading all of a team's creative work into the system, AdBot actually learns to not only think creatively, but to think the same way those writers and art directors do.

Say you have a sarcastic, snarky writer whose style is perfect for one of your more irreverent clients. You can upload all of his or her work into a distinct profile within the AdBot system. Then when you need that writer for a new project – say, a :30 radio spot – you simply choose the parameters of the project and assign it to that writer's profile. AdBot will deliver you a creative spot written in the definitive style of that writer. Art directors can be "cloned" as well – the system will note favorite font styles, layout preferences, common color choices, etc. It turns out, as ad agency business teams have long suspected, you don't really NEED a creative department.

Media placement can also be mostly automated using AdBot, but the media team has to be in the office at least part-time to receive free promotional items and be taken out to lunch. Therefore, once the system is in place, Brogan & Partners plans to scale back to a 2-day work week, with customer service on call the rest of the week. The new job of the creative team will be to maintain the AdBot database, updating the creative input occasionally as trends change, and to fetch doughnuts for the account and media teams from the nearby Tim Horton's.

Did your favorites make the list? Adweek's top Super Bowl ads. As always, engagement is key. But many Super Bowl marketers forget about mobile. Again, let's talk about engagement. This time on Instagram.

5 Super Bowl LLI ads everyone is talking about. From Justin Timberlake's "Bai, Bai, Bai" commercial from last year, to owning the halftime show last night, viewers were certainly in for an entertaining evening. What ads scored? Let's run a play-by-play.

Gen We is earning allowance - and saving it too. Allowance is still a thing but it's rarely a handout these days. Seventy percent of U.S. parents gave their kids an average weekly allowance in exchange for routine chores, like emptying the dishwasher and doing laundry.

Up +10% from last year. Easier checkouts mean more mobile shopping. The year of you. Expect more personalization in 2018. Alexa continues to gain traction. And brands are wondering how to bring voice to their products. Tech is still a boys' club. These women are shaking up the status quo.

Brogan sharpens the saw, strengthens team at Camp Tamarack. Trust, communication, respect, collaboration and responsibility are fundamental attributes of high performing teams. In the four hours the Brogan Team spent at Tamarack Adventure & Retreat Center, we worked these skills silly – both figuratively and literally.

2018 healthcare marketing trends, buzzwords and bingo. It's that time of year again. Everyone's talking 2018 healthcare marketing trends, buzzwords and big ideas. So we thought it might be fun to give our lingo a new twist with this Healthcare Marketing Bingo card.

THE Topic of conversation

Millennials. Discover who Millennials are, why it's important to market to them, and how you can increase brand loyalty and engagement. Download our free whitepaper "8 Rules of Marketing to Millennials."

I hate being picked up. Yes, I'm an adult but it may have more to do with control than age. So when I found myself being hoisted five feet in the air, threaded headfirst through a manmade web as part of a team building experience at Tamarack Adventure & Retreat Center, I braced for the worst.

But it was fun. Really, really fun.

Once in my team's hands, I didn't worry about my weight or breaking my neck. I didn't fret over injuring someone. Instead I felt almost weightless and perfectly safe.

Trust is a powerful thing. It's also the foundation of successful teams and strong leadership. Communication, respect, collaboration and responsibility are also fundamental attributes of high performing teams. In the four hours the Brogan Team spent at Tamarack Adventure & Retreat Center this winter, we worked these skills silly—both figuratively and literally.

Our Tamarack guides, Jess and Tyler, kicked off the morning's events with a short hike through the camp's densely forested trails. They rounded us up at a village clearing for a game of rock/paper/scissors meets simulated balance beam, wrapped in enthusiastic fans and supporters In addition to learning how flexible your team members can be, the point of this exercise is to experience the roar of the crowd. (It feels really good, especially when your peeps chant your name.)

They divided us into two tidy groups of 12 and we went our separate ways for a couple hours. Tyler led my group deeper into the woods where a thick rope hung from a tall tree. Five or six feet from where the rope knotted near the ground stood a circle of eight, vinyl record-sized tree slices. Our job was to get every team member to the slices without touching the ground after leaving the rope.

The challenge was draped in a story that involved rabid monkeys, a science experiment gone awry, apocalyptic climate conditions, all complicated by mandatory silence. After crushing the task (thanks in part to the climbing rope that a teammate had stowed in his backpack), Tyler took us through two more group initiatives.

We reunited with the other team at a climbing wall, roughly 12 feet tall and smooth to the finish. The final group challenge was to evacuate all participating members over the wall to safety before a platoon of towering alien penguins reached our fortress. Everyone was required to participate actively, though no one was required to scale the wall.

In fairly quick order, the team had selected candidates to be human step stools and the first pair of arms to hoist climbers within reach of the top of the wall. Like the other group initiatives, the exercise demanded communication, trust, cooperation and courage. One of our team members had a terrible fear of falling. During an early challenge, she sang her way through her fears. When she began to doubt her resolve, we drowned out her reservations with cheers. The final tally: Brogan Team, 24; Mutant Penguins, 0.

Before hiking back to the parking lot, Jess and Tyler gathered us in a circle to review the morning's events. Teamwork and trust were central themes. Some discovered new attributes like leadership and risk-taking in colleagues they'd worked with for years. Many were proud of their individual accomplishments and freely credited the team for their support and encouragement. Everyone enjoyed the outdoor setting, deep enough in the woods to escape the confines of an office and reach of cell phone towers.

"It was a great office bonding experience," said the president. "We had so much fun, laughed a lot, and got to enjoy a beautiful day outdoors."

"It got us outside and out of our comfort zones so we can come together," said an account team leader.

"It was a really fun way to get out of the office and problem solve in a unique way," said a copywriter.

Topic

Why Brogan?

Results. Strategic insights that deliver more "aha" moments. Creative that makes an emotional connection. Account service that creates happy clients. And metrics that move your business forward. We guarantee you'll be delighted.